December 21, 1552: Katie
Luther was buried at the City Church (St. Mary’s) in Torgau,
Germany. Between the plague spreading through the area and the Emperor waging
war against the German princes, it was not considered safe to return Katie’s
body to Wittenberg to be buried next to Martin’s.

Katharina von Bora,
referred to as "die Lutherin" (January 29, 1499 – December 20, 1552),
was the wife of Martin Luther,
German leader of the Protestant Reformation.
Beyond what is found in the writings of Luther and some of his contemporaries,
little is known about her. Despite this, Katharina is often considered one of
the most important participants of the Reformation because of her role in
helping to define Protestant family life and setting the tone for clergy
marriages.

Contents

Biography

Origin and family background

Katharina von Bora was daughter to a family of Saxon landed gentry.[1] According to common belief,
she was born on 29 January 1499 in Lippendorf; however, there is no evidence of this
date from contemporary documents. Due to the various lineages within the family
and the uncertainty towards Katharina's birth name, there were and are
diverging theories about her place of birth.[2][3]

Lately, however, a different view upon this matter has
been proposed: that she was born in Hirschfeld
and that her parents are supposed to have been a Hans von Bora zu Hirschfeld
and his wife Anna von Haugwitz.[4] Neither can be historically
proven. It is also possible that Katharina was the daughter of a Jan von Bora
auf Lippendorf and his wife Margarete, whose family name has not been
established. Both were only specifically mentioned in the year 1505.[5]

Life as a nun

It is certain that her father sent the five year old
Katherina to the Benedictine cloister in Brehna
in 1504 for education. This is documented in a letter from Laurentius Zoch to
Martin Luther, written on October 30, 1531. This letter is the only evidence
for Katherina von Bora's time spent within the monastery.[6] At the age of nine she moved
to the Cistercian monastery Marienthron
(Mary's Throne) in Nimbschen, near Grimma, where her maternal aunt was
already a member of the community.[7] Katharina is well documented
at this monastery in a provision list of 1509/10.[8]

After several years of religious life, Katharina became
interested in the growing reform movement and grew dissatisfied with her life
in the monastery. Conspiring with several other nuns to flee in secrecy, she
contacted Luther and begged for his assistance.

On Easter eve, 4 April 1523, Luther
sent Leonhard Köppe, a city councilman of Torgau
and merchant who regularly delivered herring to the monastery. The nuns successfully
escaped by hiding in Köppe's covered wagon among the fish barrels, and fled to Wittenberg. A local student wrote to a friend: 'A
wagon load of vestal virgins
has just come to town, all more eager for marriage than for life. God grant
them husbands lest worse befall."[9]

Luther at first asked the parents and relations of the
refugee nuns to admit them again into their houses, but they declined to
receive them, possibly as this was participating in a crime under canon law.[10] Within two years, Luther was
able to arrange homes, marriages, or employment for all of the escaped
nuns—except for Katharina. She first was housed with the family of Philipp
Reichenbach, the city clerk of Wittenberg, and later went to the home of Lucas Cranach the Elder
and his wife, Barbara. Katharina had a number of suitors, including Wittenberg
University alumnus Jerome (Hieronymus) Baumgärtner (1498–1565) of Nuremberg and a pastor, Kaspar Glatz of Orlamünde, but none of the proposed matches
resulted in marriage. Finally, she told Luther’s friend and fellow reformer, Nikolaus von Amsdorf,
that she would be willing to marry only Luther or him.

Katharina immediately took on the task of administering
and managing the vast holdings of the monastery, breeding and selling cattle,
and running a brewery in order to provide for their family and the steady
stream of students who boarded with them and visitors seeking audiences with
her husband. In times of widespread illness, Katharina operated a hospital on
site, ministering to the sick alongside other nurses. Luther called her the
"boss of Zulsdorf," after the name of the farm they owned, and the
"morning star of Wittenberg" for her habit of rising at 4 a.m.
to take care of her various responsibilities.

In addition to her busy life tending to the lands and
grounds of the monastery, Katharina bore six children: Johannes (Hans)
(1526–75), Elizabeth
(1527–28) who died at eight months, Magdalena (1529–42) who died at thirteen years, Martin
Jr. (1531–1565), Paul
(1533–93), and Margarete (1534–70); in addition she suffered a miscarriage in
1539. The Luthers also raised four orphan children, including Katharina's nephew,
Fabian.[14]

Anecdotal evidence indicates that Katharina von Bora’s
role as the wife of a critical member of the Reformation paralleled the marital
teachings of Luther and the movement. Katharina depended on Luther such as for
his incomes before the estate’s profits increased, thanks to her. She respected
him as a higher vessel and called him formally “Sir Doctor” throughout her
life. He reciprocated such respect by occasionally consulting her on church
matters.[15] She assisted him with
running the menial estate duties as he couldn’t complete both these and those
to the church and university. Katharina also directed the renovations done to
accommodate the size of their operations. [16]

After Luther's death

Katharina von Bora, 1546

When Martin Luther died in 1546, Katharina was left in
difficult financial straits without Luther's salary as professor and pastor,
even though she owned land, properties, and the Black Cloister. She was
counselled by Martin Luther to move out of the old abbey and sell it, after his
death, into much more modest quarters with the children who remained at home,
but she refused.[17] Almost immediately
thereafter, Katharina had to leave the Black Cloister on her own at the
outbreak of the Schmalkaldic War,
from which she fled to Magdeburg.
After her return the approach of the war forced another flight in 1547, this
time to Braunschweig. In July of that year, at the close
of the war, she was at last able to return to Wittenberg. After the war the
buildings and lands of the monastery had been torn apart and laid waste, the
cattle and other farm animals were stolen or killed. If she would have sold the
land and the buildings, she could have had a good financial situation. As it
was, economically, they could not remain there. Katharina was able to support
herself thanks to the generosity of John
Frederick I, Elector of Saxony and the princes of Anhalt.[citation
needed]

She remained in Wittenberg in poverty until 1552, when an
outbreak of the Black Plague
and a harvest failure forced her to leave the city once again. She fled to Torgau
where her cart was involved in a bad accident near the city gates, seriously
injuring Katharina. She died in Torgau about three months later on December 20,
1552 at the age of fifty-three and was buried at Torgau's Saint Mary's Church,
far from her husband's grave in Wittenberg. She is reported to have said on her
deathbed, "I will stick to Christ as a burr to cloth."[citation
needed]

By the time of Katharina's death, the surviving Luther
children were adults. After Katharina's death, the Black Cloister was sold back to the university in
1564 by his heirs. Hans studied law and became a court advisor. Martin studied
theology, but never had a regular pastoral call. Paul became a physician. He
fathered six children and the male line of the Luther family continued through
him to John
Ernest Luther, ending in 1759. Margareta
Luther, born in Wittenberg on
December 17, 1534, married into a noble, wealthy Prussian family, to Georg von
Kunheim (Wehlau, July 1, 1523 – Mühlhausen, October 18, 1611, the son of Georg von
Kunheim (1480–1543) and wife Margarethe, Truchsessin von Wetzhausen
(1490–1527)) but died in Mühlhausen in
1570 at the age of thirty-six. Her descendants have continued to modern times,
including German President Paul von Hindenburg
(1847–1934) and the Counts zu Eulenburg and
Princes zu Eulenburg und Hertefeld.[citation
needed]

Lutheran

Presbyterian

About Me

Retired. Reformed and Presbyterian by background, but dedicated to the Anglican Prayerbook with degrees from Presbyterian and Episcopal seminaries. Informed by both traditions. Not giving up the 1662 BCP for the Presbyterians and not giving up the Westminster Standards for the Anglicans.